Google Reader as a web capture tool

For some time I have been looking for a lightweight tool for capturing information while surfing the web (my work requires a lot of that) and saving it for later reading, maybe reference.

I tried Microsoft One Note, Evernote, various capture tools for Ubuntu Linux, but they seemed too complicated, and added one more layer to my system.

Surprisingly, there is a great capture tool feature kinda hidden in the Google RSS Reader.

Here's how to find it:
1. Open Google Reader

2. Go to the bar at the left, hit "All Items"

3. Go to "Notes"

4. On right, in Reader's main window, you'll see a button called "Note In Reader".

5. Drag the button to favorites bar in your internet browser.

How to use it:

1. When you see a webpage you want to save, you hit the "Note In Reader" button on your favorites bar.

2. A pop-up window apperas with "Post Item" button. Before you hit that, you might want to uncheck the "add to shared items" box. Unchecking it means the webpage will be saved to your Google Reader's notes section, and it will not be available for anyone following you in Google Reader (yep, it has some social features like that).

3. If necessary, you can add tags to saved webpage.

4. You hit "Post Item" and pop up disappears.

5. If you ever want to find that saved webpage, go to Google Reader / All Items / Notes and browse or just type a query in Google Reader's search box, narrowing the search to notes section if you want.

Advantages of Google Reader as a web capture tool:

1. Web based, access form anywhere
2. Lightweight, no other software than a browser required.
3. Saving a webpage really fast, lot faster that One Note or Evernote.
4. Google Reader search tool.
5. Tags.
6. Captures not only webpages you surf, but Google Reader items too (just hit the "share with a note button" at the bottom of a item, and you'll get the same popup window as decribed above).

Disadvantages:

1. Saves a link and a description of a webpage, you can't clip an image and other stuff.
2. ..?

This is very cool! I had no clue that the Google reader had this capability. This is something that I already use for my job, and if I integrate this feature, it will effectively serve to simplify my work. Thanks a lot for sharing this. Can anyone tell me anything about microsoft dynamics crm?